1. How to differentiate between the fake food and real food?

Food adulteration means anything adding or subtracting with food making it injurious
to health. This adulteration may be done intentionally or unintentionally. Intentional
adulteration is a criminal act and punishable offense. Or the process of lowering the
nutritive value of food either by removing a vital component or by adding substances
of inferior quality.
According to Food and Drug Administration (FDA), food can be declared adulterated
if:
a) a substance is added which is injurious to health
b) cheaper or inferior quality item added to food
c) any valuable constituent is extracted from main food article
d) quality of food is below the standards
e) any substance has been added to increase bulk or weight
f) to make it appear more valuable

2. How many types of food adulteration?

Based on the type of contamination, adulteration can be divided into 3 types,
Intentional adulterants, Metallic contamination, Incidental adulterants.

Intentional adulterants are sand, marble chips, stone, mud, chalk powder, water,
mineral oil and coal tar dyes. This adulteration cause harmful effects on the body.

Metallic contaminations include arsenic from pesticides, lead from water, and
mercury from effluents of chemical industries, tin from cans.

Incidental adulterants are pesticide residues, tin from can droppings of rodents, larvae
in foods. Metallic contamination with arsenic lead, mercury can also occur
incidentally. Pests such as rodents and insects intrude into the food at high degree and
produce filth in the form of excreta, bodily secretions and spoilage through
microorganisms. The most common incidental adulterants are pesticides, marathon
residues present on the plant product.

3. How bad is the effect to the consumer?

Adulteration of food leads to several heath issues in humans. Few health hazards
include stomach ache, body ache, anaemia, paralysis, and increase within the
incidence of tumors, pathological lesions in very important organs, abnormalities of
skin and eyes and many more.
In 2008, infant formula produced in China was deliberately contaminated with
melamine to increase the apparent protein concentration. Approximately 300,000
infants and young children were sickened with kidney stones and renal failure and six
deaths were reported. Thus, food adulteration ought to be very important because of
its impact within the health significance of the public.

4. How about the chemical interaction from the fake food towards our body and
digestive system?
Human health is highly sensitive to food adulteration and sometimes shows
immediate side effects like diarrhea, dysentery and vomiting. For example, coffee
 powder substituted with date seed powder or tamarind can cause diarrhea
.Adulteration of cream filled foods, bakery items and dairy products can also cause
abdominal cramps and vomiting. Improperly processed milk and canned meat may
cause food poisoning and abdominal pain or other food infections usually with fever
and chills.
Long term effects like colon, peptic ulcers, liver diseases like cirrhosis and liver
failure, heart diseases, blood disorder, bone marrow abnormality and kidney damage
have been observed due to adulterants like colouring dyes, calcium carbide, urea,
burnt engine oil and sometimes even due to excess amount of permitted
preservatives.

5. What do you suggest to educate the consumers about this issues?

The mindset of the consumer should be changed by awareness programmes as they
are easily misguided by the lower price for fake stuff.
There are certain things consumers can do to help protect themselves from food
fraud. If the price of a valuable food product is too good to be true, it probably is.
Whole, unprocessed foods (such as unground coffee and spices, or whole fruits
instead of juice) are more difficult to adulterate, therefore buying these foods may
offer some reassurance with regards to fraud. As for processed foods, it is a good
idea to buy from reputable sources and brands that have a vested interest in
protecting their reputation. When fraud incidents are discovered, they can result in
large profit losses and reputation damage for companies. Therefore, companies with
brand recognition will actively take steps to protect their products
Consumers have also to be educated about the various methods in which
adulteration takes place. They have to interact among themselves in any platform eg
media social to be updated with the current issues.

6. How to ensure that the consumer is aware with their rights in order to have courage to
speak?
As a consumer, you have the right to receive fair judgement which includes
compensation for your purchase of good or services received which had a misleading
trade description, was of poor quality or if you received unsatisfactory services. You
can submit a claim for compensation to the Tribunal For Consumer Claims
Malaysia which is part of the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs
Malaysia. As a consumer, you are protected under the Consumer Protection Act
1999. So don’t worry and claim your rights!

7. From what you know, is there any specified landfill that will dispose of the fake food
especially industry scale? For example, the alcohol cases in 2018 that mixed with
methanol.

8. What is your opinion/ idea about to emphasis the food industry about the importance
of Food Act and Regulation especially about the quality control for each batch of food
processing?
Some of the control approach the Industry could have done for example:
 They need to feel more ethical and moral responsibility as food business
operator to supply & serve whole some food to the society.
  They must know Regular updates on the process and allergen related
outbreaks in the world.

 Conducted Risk assessment [probability or severity] for all the ingredients,

additives , processing aids and processing techniques.

 Frequent testing must also be done for vulnerable ingredients, additives and
processing aids.
9. In your opinion, how the fake food or adulterated food can easily penetrate the
market?

Factors such as the demand for a specific ingredient (volume), the extent of its use
(ingredient used in several products and businesses), or the market price fluctuation
may contribute to an increased level of susceptibility to the adulteration.

Geopolitical considerations are also important to characterise exposure to food

adulteration. A country-specific low price compared with the rest of the market may
indicate a lack of food control and/or regulatory/enforcement framework in the
country of origin (or any other country through which the ingredient may transit).
Thus the enforcement plays a vital role to control the adulteration cases to increase
in the future.